The present invention relates to a cell culture apparatus, and more particularly to a cell culture apparatus provided with an isolator including a sterile space for accommodating cell incubators filled with a culture solution containing cells to be cultured is disposed.
In fields such as regenerative medicine and artificial insemination, various related-art culture apparatuses and sampling apparatuses which can be used in cell culture or sampling have been proposed (for example, see Japanese Patent No. 4,365,783 and JP-A-2009-180594). As a type of such apparatuses, also a culture apparatus of the isolator type has been proposed which can accommodate a plurality of cell incubators in an incubator that is maintained in a sterile condition.
In such a culture apparatus of the isolator type, in order to maintain a sterile space in a sterile condition, the sterile space must be highly isolated from the outside. In the case where, for example, a culture solution in a cell incubator is to be sampled, therefore, the cell incubator in the incubator must be once carried out into a pass box or the like which is disposed adjacently to the incubator constituting a sterile space, and then taken out to the outside, with the result that the sampling operation requires much labor and time.